BAGHDAD — American troops grabbed two al-Qaeda in Iraq bombing suspects and a Shiite militia leader Tuesday in separate raids north and south of Baghdad, the U.S. military said.
The command also said U.S. soldiers killed four other suspects a day earlier after coming under fire from machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades in Shiite sections of the capital.
One of the two al-Qaeda suspects, captured with four aides in Mosul, is believed to have overseen security for the branch in that northern city, the military said. Mosul is one of the terrorist network’s last urban strongholds and the target of a joint U.S.-Iraqi operation.
The man, not identified by name, is suspected of masterminding bombings against Iraqi police, the U.S. military said.
The other al-Qaeda in Iraq suspect was apprehended along with an assistant in Tikrit, a Sunni Arab city south of Mosul. He allegedly helped organize suicide bombings and the movement of foreign fighters into the country, a U.S. statement said.
The suspected Shiite militia leader and five associates surrendered without incident at his home in Kut, southeast of the Iraqi capital, the U.S. said. He was accused of involvement in the murder of Iraqis and American soldiers, officials said.
Violence has dropped dramatically since a May 11 cease- fire put an end to seven weeks of fighting by U.S. and Iraqi troops against Shiite militias in Baghdad’s Sadr City district.
Since then, government forces have intensified efforts to restore control of Sadr City and Basra, the southern city where Shiite gunmen ruled the streets for more than three years.
Witnesses in Mosul, meanwhile, said Kurdish troops reinforced their positions at Iraqi government buildings in the city’s northern al-Arabi district, deploying fighters to rooftops despite an order from Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to vacate the area.
“We’ve seen an intensified presence of peshmerga (Kurd ish militia), and their numbers have increased along with armored vehicles,” one resident said on condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisals. He said government troops had increased their patrols.
